


Five Times Stephen Saved Tony and One Time Tony Saves Him

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asian Stephen Strange, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Magic, Magical Stephen, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Stephen Strange, Protective Tony Stark, Racebending, They all have superpowers still, Tony Being Tony, Tony Feels, Worldbuilding, a little anyways, but no one is a superhero, its just like mutants basically, little bit of possessive but not creepy behavior, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-04 22:33:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11564691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Stephen was pretty much everything Tony hated about alphas on the surface given how much of an arrogant dick he is sometimes, but he was also smart. Very smart. So when they met somewhat by accident Tony was surprised to find that Stephen actually listened to him.This is exactly what it says on the tin.





	Five Times Stephen Saved Tony and One Time Tony Saves Him

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so to explain the world here the characters still have their capabilities- so Strange is still the Sorcerer Supreme and Tony still went through Afghanistan and Obi, but neither of them are heroes. They just got their powers (or on Tony's case built his suit to escape though he didn't refine it when he got back, he dealt with Obi the old fashioned way with police and his own fists) and then moved on with life. Strange returned to being a doctor and Tony to being an inventor.
> 
> That said I hope you like it!

_One_ :

Natasha was more graceful about heats, Tony thinks, than he is. “At least you don’t get a period,” she says and Tony frowns.

“Neither do you,” he points out. Freak accident of biology made her infertile and she was pretty happy about it. Never really wanted kids and Tony couldn’t blame her for that.

“Yeah but I still get heats. What the fuck even _is_ this? These stupid things are for reproduction, which I can’t do, how come I still have to wait till menopause to not have these stupid things?” Natasha mumbles. At least she looked pretty flushed and sweaty thanks to the heat, Tony looked like a dripping wet tomato with hair.

“At least your heats stop,” Tony mumbles. Women got menopause to stop this shit, men got to deal with it for life. The most common death for men over sixty was heats thanks to their older bodied being unable to handle the biological function anymore. Tony was resigned to being killed by his own stupid body doing stupid things.

“Women have to give birth and deal with sexism that’s ten times worse if you’re an omega so men can deal with the heats,” she says.

“Then make alphas do it, male omegas get creepy comments too you know. Yesterday I had one alpha come up to me and out and out as if I was willing to sell my time in heat. I have no problem with sex work and all that but you don’t just ask people on the street about that shit,” he says. He felt like that was common sense but alphas were fucking stupid. Even Stephen agreed.

“What’d Stephen do?” Natasha asks, looking amused. Ah yes, his weirdly possessive but not an asshole about it alpha. Never thought he’d find one of those. Tony tended to stick to betas because they didn’t have a complex and his steady off and on relationship with Bruce was nice. They had a lot in common but then he off and found Betty and Tony had to admit that they were a good couple. They still talked sometimes about science things but their relationship was totally different so Tony had had to find someone new to deal with his heats. That had how he had, interestingly, met Natasha. Omegas didn’t tend to pair up with each other but Tony had no interest in dickhead alphas and neither did Nat so they made a truce. Then Tony went to Tibet and met Stephen and things got wild.

Stephen was pretty much everything Tony hated about alphas on the surface given how much of an arrogant dick he is sometimes, but he was also smart. Very smart. So when they met somewhat by accident Tony was surprised to find that Stephen actually listened to him. He had been in an argument with his companion, an omega woman Tony mistook for his partner at first, about the pros and cons of one of Hammer’s latest disaster products. Tony had interrupted to flat out condemn any use of Hammer tech because the guy was a moron who thought he was hot shit because his daddy was an okay inventor and because he’s an alpha. He didn’t expect Stephen to _agree_. And then he actually engaged with Tony, asking questions and not just to talk down on him or explain concepts to him like he was a fucking child instead of an expert in his field.

When he asked Tony out after Tony had been skeptical enough to blow him off and, to his _intense_ surprise Stephen took it fine. He just grinned and went on with the conversation like he hadn’t just been rejected. Even his companion looked surprised at that though by then Tony had figured out that Christine was only a friend. He hadn’t expected to run into Stephen ever again but he had later in the week when, as per omega usual, some dipshit on the street felt entitled to his body. Yeah he smelled good but shit, alphas could control themselves and he damn well knew that because women alphas almost _never_ acted like entitled assholes. Maybe because they also got harassed by male alphas looking for a conquest they could brag about, who knew?

Either way Tony had ended up in an argument with said alpha about how, exactly, biology worked when Stephen stepped in. Arguing with a doctor who more than prided himself on his work in medicine was a bad move on his would be suitor’s behalf because Stephen had _not_ taken that well. Needless to say Tony got to witness one of the most epic verbal smack downs ever delivered in the history of harassed omegas and from and _alpha_ at that. Of course Tony had already _said_ everything Stephen did but he also took the time to point out that Tony was the expert on his own damn biology and that almost every recent study on omega biology proved that everything alphas had gathered before was either extremely inaccurate or straight up made up.

Tony couldn’t just let Stephen run off after that, he had _questions_. Namely how he came to be so liberal because even with advanced rights for omegas people were still dicks. Stephen, true to his arrogant nature, had told Tony he was too intelligent to be discriminatory. That was a bit much but he had proven to be interesting enough to talk to that Tony agreed to an outing with him. Mostly because Christine was also coming and she had been around herself to confirm such a thing. The last thing Tony expected was to discover _magic_ \- as in eye of newt spells and stuff- was _real_ but Stephen had a thing for presentation. Something told Tony Stephen wanted to impress him in the best way possible and yeah, being a legit _sorcerer_ was pretty impressive. He also discovered that through the magic Stephen could sense more than the average person, meaning that the usual assumptions about omegas were null and void because he out and out knew none of it was true.

He still thought Stephen calling himself the ‘Sorcerer Supreme’ was absurd though.

So they ended up with a tentative relationship that had steadily grown stronger because Tony was curious about magic and Stephen was curious about technology. Once he told Tony that he could work magic almost as well as Stephen could and without ever using a spell- high praise from him. He did, however, notice that Stephen had a pretty impressive possessive streak though. Christine had given him a warning about it but it wasn’t until they were back in America that Tony had any real proof for it. Stephen had no problems with Tony’s money, his power, his attitude, or anything else that made Tony Tony but god help the sorry soul who hit on Tony. He was more than used to the treatment from alphas, which was probably worse than the average male omega got thanks to his celebrity status and his status as some kind of challenge, but people rarely listened to his protests. They did, however, listen to Stephen or they ended up… somewhere. Tony had no idea what half his spells did but he couldn’t say he felt much pity for the idiot who didn’t listen to ‘no’ the first time.

“Surprisingly he handled it pretty well,” Tony says, recalling his annoyed reaction to the alpha that had decided that Tony was to put up his heat for sale. Tony wouldn’t have been quite so disgusted if it weren’t for the obvious presumption that Tony was _going_ to do what that alpha asked.

“Handled it well? Stephen doesn’t handle _anything_ like that well,” Natasha points out. She had been rather worried about the behavior when Tony first mentioned it and Tony wasn’t a fool. He knew possessive behavior rarely stopped where Stephen’s did, his father had been one of _those_ kinds of alphas. But he was observant too, and always on edge around alphas so even a slight hint of something going wrong would have tipped him off. He noticed the pattern fast though. Stephen was happy to leave him to his own devices, but when alphas refused to back off, well.

He had asked Natasha to do some sleuthing to either confirm or deny the pattern but she found the same thing even though Tony hadn’t told her _what_ pattern he found, just that he found one. So she had reluctantly approved of his presence in Tony’s life and Tony got to sit back and watched as Stephen magicked idiots who needed a language lesson when they refused to back off.

“Yeah, but this guy only lost his voice for a week,” Tony says and Natasha starts laughing.

“That sounds more like Stephen,” she says. So it did, and unlike most alphas displays of ‘protection’ it wasn’t out of thinly veiled assumptions of ownership over their omega, it was irritation that alphas refused to leave Tony alone after he told them to beat it.

 _Two_ :

The world was a weird place with all the unexpected and probably undiscovered magic in it. Tony would know because he had a giant piece of technology in his chest keeping him alive, one Stephen told him needed to be removed because it was poisoning him. After Afghanistan and overhauling his company he didn’t expect the tech to unexpectedly turn on him but Stephen ensured him that they had more than enough time to plan medical intervention. Stephen Strange was the best of the best and he was literally magical so Tony knew he shouldn’t be worried but he was.

Stephen leans over his bed with his mask on and his hair trapped under one of those paper hat things and he thinks he smiles thanks to his almond shaped eyes crinkling a bit at the edges. “I know you’re nervous but we’ve done extensive planning and I’m attuned to your biology, I’d probably smell something going wrong before it did.” Yeah, Tony had to admit that being able to smell health problems on omegas was kind of a cool ability alphas had. Of course most of them were douchebags about it and insisted that it was only natural to want a healthy omega instead of a sick one. Stephen had told Tony that the ability wasn’t to promote the social Darwinism that alphas preferred now though it did have roots in evolution. Omegas were extremely fertile- something that was useful around ten thousand years ago when humans nearly went extinct- and being able to smell the sick on them meant that you could intervene medically before they were too far gone. That meant more omegas around, which meant more chance of reproduction.

But no alphas claimed that sick or disabled omegas were useless. Bunch of twats. “Great. That doesn’t really make me feel better to be honest,” Tony tells him and Stephen reaches out to him, gently squeezing his arm.

“I know, but I figured I’d try. I need you to count backwards from ten for me okay?” he asks and Tony complies, getting to seven before his world goes black.

When he wakes up his head feels foggy and like its been stuffed with cotton. “I’m stealing your jello,” Natasha tells him, hospital jello already in her hand. He sort of wants to touch the spot where the arc reactor used to be but he also doesn’t want to feel a giant hole in his chest like the last time he did this. Instead he focuses on Natasha and her stolen jello.

“Gross. Keep it. Where’s Stephen?” he asks. He’s surprised that he isn’t around to see him wake up.

“Sleeping,” Natasha says, “he’s been out for most of the day though so he’ll probably wake up soon too. Your surgery took twenty seven hours so he was probably pretty exhausted.” Twenty-seven hours? Jesus that’s a long time and then there was the time Tony has spent actually sleeping and metabolizing the anesthetic that kept him knocked out during the surgery.

“Hmm. Well whatever doctor who comes in first will be told that I’m not eating that shit,” Tony says, gesturing to the food on a tray that was sitting off to the side of his bed. He had _taste buds_ and said taste buds would never allow him to eat that crap. Even if he was really hungry.

“Then you’re in luck,” Stephen says, walking in the door in rumpled scrubs with food. “I happen to be the first doctor in and I brought you food.” He lifts up a McDonalds bag and Tony can hear his stomach rumble.

“You’re amazing, give me the burger,” Tony says, reaching out for the bag.

Stephen laughs, “I’m not feeding you McDonald’s after you went through a major surgery. I just used my McDonald’s bag to bring your veggies back. Don’t worry, there’s also spaghetti,” he says when Tony gives him _the_ most unimpressed look. Natasha starts laughing and Stephen pokes and prods at Tony to make sure he’s okay. Aside from being violently _betrayed_ he was fine. Stephen feeds him because sitting up in his current condition wasn’t happening and he didn’t want Tony to strain himself too much. Tony secretly thinks he does it because he wants an opportunity to take care of Tony in a situation he wouldn’t protest in but Tony lets him. He’s too lazy to use utensils anyways.

“I’m not eating the celery,” Tony tells him when Stephen takes the small containers of vegetables out of the Bag of Betrayal.

“That’s fine,” Stephen says easy enough and Tony grins in triumph. “Celery has no nutritional value anyways.” Tony stops grinning and Natasha starts laughing again, happily leaning over Tony to steal his celery. Looks like everyone was betraying him today.

 _Three_ :

Sometimes, especially if he was out with Natasha, he realized why omegas remained domestic for so damn long. “Sometimes I wish Rhodey was around more to deal with this crap,” Tony says, eyes flicking over to the group of alphas yelling obscenities at them. He figured Nat would take most of the heat here no pun intended but nope, apparently these assholes were all for equality of oppression he guessed.

“You think a _third_ omega would make them stop?” Natasha asked incredulously. She put on a good show but she was clearly nervous. She almost certainly had a history of abuse, Tony knew the signs, so this probably wasn’t the kind of situation she’d want to be in for long. Tony either but usually people didn’t follow him around for blocks at a time. The good news was that these alphas were way too drunk to pay attention to him and Natasha taking a purposefully convoluted route home. They were right by the tower, which was ideal, but Tony didn’t feel like leading these idiots right to his door even if JARVIS would appropriately deal with them. Or Happy, whichever got to them first.

“Sure. Rhodey’s a badass,” Tony says. If there was anything he knew about alphas it was that they really didn’t like badass omegas. The morons following them around probably wouldn’t be impressed to find out who he was, either that or they would assume he’s some kind of challenge. That was always his least favorite reaction with alphas, thinking he was some kind of extra challenge because of his well-documented attitude. Only he had that attitude because alphas were assholes, if they weren’t he probably wouldn’t need to assert himself so much.

“I know that but these people don’t care about that,” Natasha points out. True, he supposed.

He’s about to suggest ducking into a coffee shop or something to hope that these alphas had the sense to not follow them in and continue shouting weird sex shit at them when the bracelet Stephen gave him some time ago starts warming up. At first he ignores it at first, it did that sometimes, because there was a coffee shop up the street that screamed ‘safe’. Wasn’t that a real kick in the pants too, alphas claimed they just couldn’t control themselves but if you asked them to treat an omega like they were in a dark alley in the middle of a coffee shop most of them would walk off. That, to Tony, showed they damn well could control their behavior, they just didn’t because they liked being disgusting just so long as no one was around to witness it.

Natasha has the same thought he does because they both start moving with purpose towards the coffee shop at least until Tony feels himself get jerked back. At first he thinks one of the alphas got brave but then he realizes it’s the _bracelet_ yanking him back. He’s reminded, oddly, of that weird cape that Stephen has that liked to drag him around sometimes- Tony absolutely did _not_ laugh at him when it happened- and curses as the bracelet jerks him forward again. “Tony what the fuck are you doing?” Natasha asks when she asks when she realizes he isn’t beside her.

Tony gets pulled forward again and that bracelet was _hot_ what the hell? “Yeah, that’s right little omega, come close-“ the bracelet yanks Tony forward again and something about his proximity to the alphas must do something to the obvious magic in the bracelet because these weird symbols show up in the air for a few seconds, stunning everyone before they disappeared. Except they took a very dramatic exit by shooting energy towards the alphas, sending them all flying back down the street.

“Tell Strange to make me one of those,” Natasha says ruefully as they watch the alphas land in all kinds of uncomfortable and possibly even backbreaking positions. Well, maybe they shouldn’t harass people on the street if they didn’t want to be punched with magic or whatever the hell just happened.

Honestly Tony was just impressed with Stephen’s ability to keep alphas away from him when he wasn’t even in the same state as him currently.

 _Four_ :

Stephen was familiar with Tony’s nightmares of course but he’s never been pulled into one. In hindsight it shouldn’t have surprised him that he could connect to Tony’s mind like this. He’s used magic on Tony before and they’ve been together for almost two years- it was enough time for his magic to seep into Tony’s skin the way his scent had. Even his cape had a thing for Tony; dragging him all over the place if it felt Tony was in need of him. That doesn’t mean he isn’t surprised that he had landed in one of Tony’s nightmares.

He doesn’t recognize the caves except for the vague stories Tony has told him about his time here but he does recognize Tony’s figure. He hasn’t given the people around him faces with the exception of one man who watches off to the side with wide eyes looking worried. Stephen wonders why he doesn’t do anything given that Tony is obviously in danger but then he has no time to worry because one of the figures grabs Tony’s head and shoves it down. Into a bucket of water, Stephen notices and he has to think fast because he simply can’t allow this to continue. He could wake himself up and wake Tony up but how long would that take?

The problem was that he’s never actually worked dream magic before. Well, not time to learn like the present so he takes a step back and breathes in deep while he concentrates on the edges of the dream, slowly working to grip the reality that was settled around Tony’s mind. He hoped like hell that Tony’s mind would allow him to do this with no consequences and he _pulls_.

On short notice he can’t think of anywhere else to take Tony but to one of his own happy memories. He finds Tony on the ground gasping and looking around in surprise. Stephen can feel Tony’s consciousness detecting his presence but oddly it doesn’t immediately oust him like he expects it to. Dream magic was complicated and Tony had a mind that brought the average suspicion off the charts. If his mind didn’t allow him to stay he would be gone in seconds or less. Tony doesn’t remove him from the dream though, instead he takes a few seconds to catch his breath and look around. Stephen walks over and crouches beside him, surprised when Tony leans into him, taking deep steadying breaths. “You’re alright Tony, I’ve got you,” he says softly, gently hugging the omega to his chest.

“Where are we?” he asks after a few moments. He still looks like he just got out of a cave in Afghanistan but he at least looks less traumatized than he had a few moments ago.

“We’re in one of my first year medical classes. I hadn’t loved anything like I loved this class before. I’m over there,” he says, pointing to the Asian kid in the back furiously scribbling notes down. For all the talk of doctor’s bad handwriting his was actually quite neat.

“You look like a baby,” Tony says and Stephen snorts.

“How about we go back to _your_ first college class and compare who looks younger?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“How about no. Did you come to school for a medical degree?” he asks. Stephen was surprised they hadn’t covered this before in their relationship but then there was no need to. Tony knew how much he loved his job, knew that he almost lost it once after a nasty car accident before he learned of real magic.

“No. My parents were gung ho for an engineering degree but I had applied to this program on a whim. I got in of course but I didn’t tell my parents it was a medical degree. I told myself that if I didn’t love it that I would switch degrees but as soon as I sat down in my first lecture I knew there was no going back.” The memory is hazy so he doesn’t hear what the teacher asks, he just sees himself answer and the teacher looks impressed. It wasn’t the first or last time this had ever happened with him and as he progressed through his degree he got better and better with the knowledge. By the time he completed his residency everyone knew he was destined for greatness. The only time anyone ever doubted that was when he had gone over that cliff and destroyed his hands.

Christine hadn’t even _wanted_ to go with him to Tibet but he was paying and as much as she’d deny it she wanted to make sure he was safe so she went too. Magic wasn’t for her, she didn’t even try to learn, but she watched as he did. It hadn’t come easy to him unlike most things in life but once he learned he got good, very good, and then like everything else he was an expert in the subject within a few months. And then he met Tony.

“Your parents must be proud,” Tony says, still leaning on him heavily.

Stephen laughs, “no, they were furious. All of them have engineering degrees and they took it as some kind of personal slight that I didn’t get one too, like I thought I was better than then for doing something they didn’t.” That always surprised people and Tony was no exception there.

“You’re the best surgeon in the country,” Tony says in shock, “how could they not be impressed? And you’re magical. When you went over that cliff the only thing that would have brought your hands back was magic and then you _found_ magic just so you could continue practicing. I… what the hell?” he asks more to himself than Stephen.

“Your father has never been proud of you,” he points out and Tony winces. “I think it’s because he sensed that he would only ever be a footnote in your history. You’re destined for greatness Tony Stark, I could feel it on you the moment I met you and you’ve never let me down. I’ve never met anyone as impressive as you and I’ve met Christine.” She was impressive in a lot of ways too and Stephen hadn’t thought he’d meet someone he’d be more taken with. Tony had certainly proved him wrong.

Tony huffs out a laugh and the rest of the tension in his body leaks out. “Is that some weird magical wisdom?” he jokes.

“Actually yes. People have energies around them, they’re commonly called auras and no they aren’t colors that indicate moods or whatever. They’re feelings that you get around people. Most can sense them if they’ve got good intuition- you’re very impressive in that regard even without magic- but most can’t feel what I can. I can sense things about people that they don’t even know about themselves and as soon as I met you I knew you’d do great things. I can still feel it on you.” Tony made new discoveries every other week, changing the world as they knew it on such a regular basis that people could barely keep up. The very fabric of what this reality was from sheer curiosity alone. He never thought he’d meet anyone like that let alone an omega. They were all so painfully meek but not Tony, or Christine for that matter but even she paled in Tony’s brilliance.

“You sound like a fortune cookie,” Tony tells him.

“Well,” Stephen says, “I am Asian.” Tony starts laughing and Stephen smiles, happy that he was free from the stickiness of his previous nightmare.

 _Five_ :

Tony was familiar with the cape but not it was _really_ annoying him. It had started following him around for some goddamn reason and Stephen just shrugged and said sometimes it did stuff like that. Tony only accepted it because he hadn’t left the house, or more specifically the lab, in a couple days so it didn’t matter. But this thing couldn’t keep following him in public. Sure people were discovering, like Stephen, that magic was real and superpowers were technically a thing but that didn’t mean he wanted a fucking cape following him around.

“Shoo,” he says to the cape, wiggling his hands at it but the cape just floats there. Technically it has no face but Tony _swears_ it’s giving him a look that suggests it’s done with Tony’s crap. Except he’s been accepting of the bizarre cape attachment so it could just go away and be grumpy elsewhere. Tony goes back to working and out of the corner of his eye he can see the cape float closer.

“Do you mind?” he asks the cape. Stephen thought it was weird that he talked to the cape like it was a person but the thing obviously had a will of its own if it dragged Stephen all over the place and followed Tony around whenever it felt like it. He thought the cape might appreciate the treatment and besides, he talked to JARVIS the same way and Stephen was literally the only person who didn’t find that weird.

The cape just stares forward in a manner of speaking so he just sighs and goes back to his work while the cape floats closer still. “If you want to watch don’t to it over my shoulder,” Tony tells it. It reminded him of Howard watching over his shoulder, which was weird because this was a magical cape, not a human man, but still. It was grating to his nerves all the same.

It moves, marginally, away from Tony and he decides this is acceptable and turns back to his designs _again_. Then, oddly, the cape flies forward and settles over his shoulders, gently draping itself over Tony’s frame. Stephen said it chose its owner or something like that so he thinks this is some kind of weird. “What are you doing?” he asks the cape as it honest to god snuggles against his back and sides. “You better not have an orientation,” he tells it because he didn’t give a shit if this thing was an ancient magical relic if this cape was the cape equivalent of an alpha feeling him up he was lighting it on fire.

Then, because this cape could not get weirder, it suddenly tightens around Tony and lifts him off the ground. “Um,” Tony says, “your velvety ass is putting me down immediately. If you want to follow me around then fine but you do _not_ get to do whatever you want with me.” The cape ignores this and floats him out of the lab, up the stairs, down the hall, and into his room. The cape, and him since he was in it, settles on the bed and Tony sighs. “JARVIS, call Stephen,” he tells the AI.

“Strange speaking,” Stephen answers and Tony sighs.

“Your cape is molesting me,” he says.

That gets a few beats of silence, “I’m sorry did you just say my cape was _molesting_ you?” he asks. “And it’s a cloak,” he throws in.

“Yes that’s what I said,” Tony tells him, struggling to free himself from the cape, cloak, whatever, with little success. “It decided to be cute and cuddle me in the lab and then it wrapped itself around me and dragged me to bed. How sentient is this thing?” he asks.

Stephen, the traitor, starts laughing. “Well I was told the cloak was fickle. It seems to have taken a liking to you though, that’s not a bad thing. That cloak has save my life a few times though it’s never taken me to bed,” he says, amusement evident in his voice. “Wait, how long has it been since you slept?” he asks. Tony decides not to answer that because he knew he’d get in trouble.

“Almost fifty two hours, sir,” JARVIS answers, the traitorous ass.

“Then I guess that’s why the cloak has dragged you off to bed, you need sleep,” Stephen tells him.

“Fine I need sleep, can you get this thing off of me?” he asks.

“No I think I’ll let it hold you hostage for a little while longer,” Stephen says and Tony wishes his arms were free to flip Stephen off for leaving his weird cloak to force Tony to sleep.

He does eventually fall asleep but some time later he feels something shift against his skin so he blinks himself awake. “Shh, go back to sleep,” Stephen says, gazing affectionately down at Tony.

“It’s about time you save me from your cape. Teach it how to properly use foreplay before dragging people off to bed,” Tony mumbles and then he face plants in his pillow, falling back asleep as Stephen laughs.

 _Plus One_ :

Natasha, on principal, didn’t like alphas but Stephen Strange was amusing if a little cocky and even she had to admit that he actually cared about Tony. Besides, unlike most jackass alphas he didn’t try and push Tony into things he had no interest in _and_ he didn’t care that Tony spends his heats with her. There was no weird jealousy, no rude remarks, no assumptions that their arrangement was temporary until Tony decided to spend his heats with Stephen, none of that usual crap. Natasha hadn’t thought it possible, especially Tony mentioned possessive behavior but Stephen left Tony to his own devices and his magical solutions to alphas stepping out of line were hilarious. Like the time he made that one alpha smell like an omega in heat for a year. That had to have served as a good lesson in why you don’t go around treating people like pieces of meat for your consumption.

She had been nervous when Tony first mentioned the behavior but Strange didn’t seem to be creepy about it and honestly Tony had his own possessive streak. Usually there was no reason for him to have it because omegas and betas weren’t usually a bunch of barbarians like alphas were, but there were always exceptions to that rule and Natasha had to admit watching Tony glare at some omega who had been ballsy enough to hit on Stephen was good entertainment.

Stephen looks bewildered, probably because he had no idea that Tony _had_ a possessive streak, as Tony all but throws his drink at the offending omega. The omega goes to say something but Tony holds up his hand, “uh, no. You’re going to shut your mouth, turn around, and walk away because there is no way you had any illusions about Stephen being with anyone but me walking in here so get lost,” Tony says in a forceful tone, shooing the omega away.

The omega goes to say something else and Natasha steps in before Tony actually _did_ throw his drink at his offending target. “You might want to get lost. He doesn’t like when people touch his things,” Natasha says.

“What?” Stephen says, getting over his shock apparently.

“Oh come on, you should know Tony is territorial, remember that one time the US government to stuff it because he didn’t want them to get ahold of his tech?” Natasha asks. She did, that was hilarious. That was when she knew she was in it for the long haul with him. She now had a friend who blew kisses at Congress one time just to be an asshole. That was optimal for her.

“I honestly had no idea but I’m grateful that you scared her off. How do you even respond to that?” he asks. Tony and Natasha give him _looks_ because they dealt with this sort of thing all the time. “Right, I suppose you’d know all about people coming on too strong,” he says after a few moments.

“You use all sorts of magical spells to teach alphas who can’t keep their noses to themselves a lesson and you can’t deal with one wayward omega with a complex?” Tony asks, frowning.

“In my defense I got to watch you defend my honor and it was surprisingly attractive. I could react like I do with you or I could watch that attractive display again. I know which one I’m choosing,” Stephen says and Tony grins. Natasha wrinkles her nose at them and wanders off to find something less gross to occupy her time with.

To her surprise she ends up challenging a _cloak_ to a drinking contest as a form of entertainment.


End file.
